


and hold me close

by antleers



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-07 01:29:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1113903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antleers/pseuds/antleers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All of a sudden he feels incredibly exhausted, like all the bones in his body have come undone, and he could just fall asleep standing in the dark like that, with Eren wrapped around him like a safety blanket.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and hold me close

**Author's Note:**

> cross posted from my tumblr. this was prompted by koni, aka tumblr user erwinsmth!! i wasn't able to put in a few things requested like them winning prom king or awkward dancing which i really regret not adding in now. but hey at least i finished it?? wheezes nervously i've never posted anything onto ao3 before but i hope this is okay yeah

Drunken makeouts aren’t anything _new_ for them, per say—Eren’s lips are familiar; dry, slightly chapped, and tasting of hard liquor mixed in with whatever fruit drink they could find in Christa’s fridge. Jean wonders what he tasted like himself—probably just traces of the cheap beer he’d had Marco procure for him before Eren had all but dragged him up the stairs and into a conveniently placed supply closet at the end of the hall.

It’s cramped and dark, but they’re used to it. Cramped and dark are the definitive terms of their relationship, if you could call it that—stealing away during breaks or after school, in the boy’s bathroom, in the locker rooms when all the teams have gone home, under the bleachers of the football field. It’s more than tiring sometimes, but Jean doesn’t know why he can never call it off—this ‘thing’ he’d somehow started with Eren Jaeger, center forward on the school’s soccer team and step-brother of Mikasa Ackerman, the infamous captain of the girl’s wrestling squad, which had been altogether nonexistent until she’d single-handedly brought it back from the dust.

Mikasa was scary in her overwhelming concern for Eren’s well being, and it was only through sheer luck she hadn’t found out (yet, because this was Mikasa, and nothing involving Eren could be hidden from her for long) about how that weird artsy hipster guy who wore beanies and listened to punk rock bands no one heard of was making out with her little brother under the school’s bleachers for a total of, oh, six months, maybe? He hadn’t exactly been keeping count.

Jean knew their relationship (casual making out? friends with benefits? what the fuck were they?) couldn’t be anything but unfitting, ill-matched in the eyes of the student body should they ever find out, and yet. And yet. Eren didn’t seem to mind the least bit. With how Jean was going crazy thinking and overthinking the fundamentals of their play at a ‘relationship’ Eren didn’t seem the least bit bothered, content to play his dumb soccer, somehow pass all his classes with straight Bs and B pluses, and then make out with Jean as the cherry on top of his perfect day.

It was frustrating, to be honest.

Jean’s distracted from his thoughts when Eren bites a little too hard on his lower lip, his hand slithering up his shirt to caress the bare skin of his stomach underneath it. “You’re thinking about something,” he accuses, murmuring into the crook between Jean’s neck and shoulder. Jean shakes his head and distractedly, more out of habit really, tangles his fingers in Eren’s hair, giving it an absent tug. Eren’s whole body shivers against his like he knows it would, but the boy remains undeterred. His lips press lightly against Jean’s collarbone, his words so soft Jean has to strain his ears to hear them.

"No one saw us come up here, if that’s what you’re worrying about."

Jean can hear traces of underlying bitterness in Eren’s voice despite his attempt at passing it off as nonchalant, and he’s so surprised he backs away, staring at the other boy like he isn’t quite seeing him.

Eren’s eyes, green-blue and fucking _enchanting_ , even in lousy fluorescent light bulb lighting, refuse to look at him. Jean opens his mouth to speak, but Eren beats him to it, words spilling out like a dam had been broken. Jean hadn’t even known that the dam existed in the first place, and he sort of just sits there at a loss with his shirt pushed up halfway.  ”I know, okay, I know you don’t want people knowing—I get that, Jesus, I’m sorry—”

"Eren—"

He doesn’t listen to him, the brunette sitting up when Jean moves away. “It’s just—it’s hard, y’know? I want to tell people about, about this. Whatever we are, I don’t know. People ask me if I have a girlfriend and,” he laughs shortly and Jean’s heart squeezes in his chest. “I don’t know what to say to them. I just. I think I might like you a whole lot, and not just for sex, or making out, I don’t know, Jean.” He pauses, licks his lips, and his next question sounds like he’s all but given up. “…Go to prom with me?”

It’s not like he hasn’t thought about it before. Prom was the only thing people ever talked about these days, and the posters stapled up on _every_ bulletin in _every_ building on campus never failed to remind him of it. The words are waiting on the tip of his tongue (yes, you asswipe, of course I will, why do you even need to ask?), but this was real life and not some cheesy romcom and Jean’s throat is clogged up, all he can think about is the backlash they’d get and what their friends would think, and what about Eren’s position on the soccer team? His title certainly wasn’t for show, Eren was good enough at the sport for Jean to know he’d never be kicked out on account of his _sexuality_ alone, but how would his teammates treat him knowing he stuck his tongue in another boy’s mouth? More than once? Repeatedly?

And then another part of his mind registers that Eren Jaeger was _asking him to prom_ in a dimly lit supply closet, when they were both half drunk (or maybe more than half, in Eren’s case), during one of Christa Lenz’s famous house parties. Faintly, he can hear the laughter coming from downstairs, music—an electronic pulse and nonsense lyrics he can’t make out, but all he can really focus on is how damn _pretty_ Eren’s mouth is, and how he just really wants to feel it against his.

And that’s what he does. He acts upon this basic, primal instinct and just presses himself as close as he can to Eren because he _needs_ the contact, _needs_ to touch him as soon as possible or else he’d spontaneously combust. 

It’s all a mess of heat and lips and tangled limbs from then on, Eren’s shirt is off, and so is Jean’s, and he can’t seem to think of anything except how good Eren feels, pressed up against him with as little space between them as possible—and it doesn’t register that nearly a third of the school is downstairs, and anyone could literally walk in on them like this (had he locked the door? he could’ve sworn he’d locked the door) because god, Eren’s hands are fisting his cock now, and his mind is long gone and away.

* * *

Post sex they lie in the dark for a while, not saying anything. Jean can feel Eren’s cum drying on his stomach, and he imagines he could fall asleep where he was, on the hard floor of Christa’s supply closet (he sends her a quick apology in his head for the mess they’d made), content with the world and all that was in it. Except not, because Eren was sitting up and pulling on his pants without looking him in the eye, his hand searching in the dark for his discarded shirt.

“Eren—” he starts, but the brunette refuses to hear him out, tugging on his clothes when he finds them and opening the door leading to the hall outside. He pauses a moment, hand on the doorknob, to glance over at Jean still lying shirtless on the ground.

He opens his mouth and Jean thinks he might actually say something, before closing it without a word. He leaves the room and Jean behind without looking back once.  

* * *

 

“I don’t know, okay,” Jean groans, face buried in a pillow. Three days later and he’s procrastinating in Marco’s dorm room, lying on his back on the bed while his best friend sits at his desk studying for his psychology finals. He feels a little guilty bothering Marco like this, but there was no one else he could talk to. Eren himself was the problem here, so he couldn’t very well go to him, and Armin was Eren’s best friend—he needed someone completely unbiased. “I confess, I messed up, I don’t even _know how.”_

“Well,” Marco says, ever so patient. His headphones rest against his neck, pen spinning expertly in between his middle and pointer finger. “You told me he asked you to prom.”

“He did,” Jean admits.

“And what did you say?”

“I said…” His words trail off without him meaning them to, brow furrowing in thought. “I didn’t—well, I kissed him then, so I don’t think I really. _Said_ anything my actions didn’t already—”

“Jean, you know Eren,” Marco continues smoothly, not even looking up from his psych text book. “He’s not a mindreader. He won’t know what you mean until you say it to him outright. He basically spilled out his heart to you and then you, what? Kissed him to shut him up?”

“No!” Of course not, what the hell Marco. “No.” Jean sighs, pushing the pillow away from his face to glare up at the ceiling. “I don’t know, okay? I just. I wanted to, at the time, and I couldn’t think of anything else.”

“So you basically forgot about everything he said, overcome by your hormonal instincts?” Marco says pointedly. Jean stiffens.

“You didn’t have to put it like that…”

“I thought you wanted my help?” Marco turns around to look at him, arm resting against the backrest of his chair.

Jean struggles to sit up, tugging the pillow into his lap. “I do.”

“And this is what I’m doing, helping you.”

“I know, I appreciate it, really.” Jean sighs, flopping over on his back again, arm lying limp over his eyes. Eren Jaeger was truly and honestly fucking him up. He should have expected this. “So. What do I do?”

“What do you mean, what do you do?”

_“Marco.”_

He hears a heavy sigh, and the sound of the chair’s wheels moving on the floor as Marco turns back to his textbook. “Make up with him somehow—I don’t know. Take him to prom.”

“And how do you expect I do that?”

“Jean, I’m honestly trying to help you here, but I can’t do _everything_ for you. I’ve got finals to worry about, too.”

“Please,” Jean scoffs. “You know you’re going to ace that test with your eyes closed.”

He can feel the smile curling on Marco’s face without actually having to see it. “Even still.”

“You didn’t deny it,” Jean says triumphantly, sitting up.

Marco rolls his eyes. “Go back to your own dorm.”

“I can’t believe you’re kicking me out, I thought we were friends.” Despite his halfhearted complaining, he gets up on his own, stretching languidly, before heading for the door. “Marco?”

“Mm?” The other boy isn’t looking at him, adjusting the headphones over his ears.

“Thanks.”

“Anytime, Jean.”

* * *

 

Jean has a plan. He never really gets the chance to ask Eren to prom directly, but he shows up at the school gym at seven in the evening, dressed to the nines and a bouquet of very expensive carnations in hand. Said plan also involved the intervention of Mikasa, who needed to make sure Eren attended prom in the first place; this meant that Jean had to reveal their relationship before he meant to, after which very nearly ended in his funeral, but did not (Mikasa already had the idea for some time now anyway). Thankfully. Eren only deserved the best, and judging by how much he’d painstakingly spent on those stupid carnations for her stupid brother, she seemed to approve of him. Somewhat.  

“Where is he?” he hisses, pulling at his stuffy collar. The gym was teeming with students and it was making Jean’s nerves stand on end. Maybe—maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all—

“By the buffet table, sulking.” He follows Mikasa’s gaze and pinpoints the brunette by the corner, a plate stacked with mini hotdogs in his lap, Armin by his side trying to console him.

“Shit. Shitshitshitshit.” He hated to admit it, but despite the sullen expression on Eren’s face, the boy still managed to look like unfairly gorgeous. Obviously, it had been Mikasa that had dressed him, but still. Only Eren Jaeger, that fucker.

 _“I can’t do this,”_ he whispers, panic-stricken, and pushes the bouquet into Mikasa’s arms. “What the hell am I doing?”

The flowers are shoved back into his chest in a distinctly harder fashion, Mikasa’s steely eyes narrowing. “This was _your_ plan in the first place, Kirschtein. You better get over there.” The unspoken ‘or else’ did not escape him.

“Okay,” Jean practically squeaks, and nearly sprints across the dance floor to where Eren and Armin were on the other side of the room.

It’s a little difficult to navigate his way without damaging the flowers, and he ends up stepping on several toes and uttering several hasty apologies, but eventually he can make out a brown tuft of hair peeking over the sea of students. Armin spots him first, and he can already see the made up excuses his mouth is forming as he stands up to move away, leaving Eren behind explicably confused.

His feet take him there before he knows it, and suddenly he’s standing in front of the boy, staring hard at the polished shine of Eren’s leather shoes that he can guess are probably hand-me-downs from his dad. Jean thrusts the flowers into his face and opts to say nothing else—a gut feeling telling him his voice would crack if he did.

“What the hell, Jean—” Eren’s voice comes out an embarrassed squeak, and while Jean can’t see his face (he’s too busy staring at his shoes) he can tell Eren’s face is flaming at the moment. He’d feel smug, but he knew better to assume his face wasn’t just as red.

“Go to prom with me,” he spits out.

Eren takes a few seconds to respond, obviously at a loss for words. “…A little too late for that, you dumbass.”

His heart sinks a tiny bit, but Jean’s stubbornness was second only to Eren’s. “Well, I’m asking you now, okay? Just say yes already—” He’s positive his face is turning redder and redder by the second; thankfully, Eren saves him the embarrassment of saying anything else by tugging the carnations out of his hand and dragging him out of the gym by the wrist.

“I cannot believe you,” is the first thing Eren says when they’re alone behind the gym, shoving the flowers into Jean’s chest.

“I’m sorry, I know I should’ve asked you earlier—”

“That’s not it, you utter dumbass,” Eren hisses, and then he throws his arms around Jean’s neck to press his lips against his in a messy kiss. They pull away after a bit, both breathing rather heavily, and Eren hits him on the head.

“Ow, seriously, what the fuck—”

“I hate you, why are you like this,” and then Eren kisses him again.

The second time they pull away to breathe, Eren rests his head against Jean’s chest, tucked underneath his chin. Jean thinks he fits perfectly like that, like they fit together perfectly—and kind of wonders when he got to be so cheesy.

“You’re really stupid, you know that,” Eren whispers muffled into Jean’s dress shirt. “I bet you rented this suit just for tonight.”

“I’ll have you know I spent almost all my part-time job money on those stupid flowers, so you owe me.” Eren snorts.

“I don’t even like carnations.”

“What?” Jean says in horror. “What the hell, Armin told me they were your favorite—”

“You asked Armin? Oh my god, I bet you were the one who got Mikasa to make me go to prom, weren’t you? I knew it.”

“Shut up,” Jean mumbles grumpily. “I got you your stupid flowers and took you to prom, what more do you want?”

“For you to stop talking and just enjoy this moment please, you’re ruining it.”

“I didn’t even know there was a moment to ruin— _ow_ _,_ seriously, why do you keep doing that—”

Eren presses his lips to his in their third kiss for the night, successfully shutting Jean up.

“I’m sorry,” Jean says breathlessly, when they pull apart again. “I just—sorry. For last time, I mean. I didn’t—I wasn’t thinking, and I was being stupid and dumb and I’m sorry.” He can’t see Eren’s face buried into his chest, but he feels the grip on his waist tighten.

“It’s not that I’m ashamed of you or anything, I just—I’m scared, okay?” he admits, sighing. “I don’t want you to get into shit with your soccer teammates because of me, and I don’t know how everyone else will take to—to this. As a whole. Not everyone’s like Mikasa and Armin, you know. They won’t like it.”

“Stop that—stop trying to protect me. I’m not delicate or—or _fragile_ , Jesus Christ, Jean. You know me by know, since when have I ever let anything like that get to me? Since when did their opinion even matter?” Eren replies gruffly. “I don’t care.”

“It’ll be hard.”

“Since when was it not?” Eren laughs, shaking his head. “You’re hard to deal with. I’m hard to deal with. We’re both hardheaded idiots—no one else could handle us.”

Jean hums softly. “Makes sense then, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

Eren falls silent after that, and Jean doesn’t have anything else to say. The music coming from the party inside the gym seems so far away now; all he can make out is the top of Eren’s head and the shadows cast by the streetlamp a few feet away. All of a sudden he feels incredibly exhausted, like all the bones in his body have come undone, and he could just fall asleep standing in the dark like that, with Eren wrapped around him like a safety blanket. It doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

“We’re missing the party,” he murmurs into the air.

“Mm,” he feels the reply against his chest.

Jean sighs, and holds Eren that much closer.


End file.
